Water Security最新文献

Privatization of water and sanitation services was strongly boosted in the 1980s. In 2020, a UN report was published pointing out that privatizing of water and sanitation services can pose risks to the guarantee of access to the human rights to water and sanitation (HRtWS). When preparing the report, a public consultation was held to receive contributions, through a standardized questionnaire, from governments, service providers, and civil society. This article aims to analyze the discourse positioning of the agents on the privatization of these services and their relationship with the guarantee of access to the HRtWS. Based on the critical-discursive approach, responses to 99 questionnaires – 18 from government, 20 from civil society and 61 from private providers – were assessed. Of those, 12 out of the 18 states that answered the questionnaire aligned themselves with the discourse of private providers, emphasizing that privatization can promote higher quality and more efficient service. Additionally, private entities point out that public agents cannot mobilize external resources and manage them efficiently. However, civil society draw attention to the fact that private providers do not put their own resources into improving infrastructure and that when they do it, they seek a quick return on investment through tariffs resulting in increased tariffs and, consequently, disconnection of people in vulnerable situations. For these actors, service privatization would be a risk to the guarantee of the HRtWS. The analysis revealed substantial discrepancies in the views of actors on the subject, pointing out to discourse disputes regarding the role of the State in the debate about water and sanitation provision.

Access to safe water is vital for community health, especially during disaster and recovery periods when standard solutions may be slow or politically stalled. Water sharing, an informal and self-guided coping mechanism, becomes critical during disasters when standard water infrastructure is damaged or destroyed. Drawing on diverse literature, we highlight the prevalence and importance of household water sharing in disaster contexts, emphasizing its potential benefits and trade-offs. We explain why these systems–while often invisible–are important and relevant to disaster recovery. Our review identifies five key observations and implications for disaster intervention, emphasizing the need for tailored support for economically marginalized groups and the integration of water sharing practices as a short-term coping mechanism into disaster response and recovery agendas. We advocate for further research to evaluate the long-term impacts of water sharing and inform policy and intervention strategies while recognizing that such community-level coping mechanisms alongside formal water services may effectively address water insecurity and bolster resilience in disaster-affected communities.

Approximately 50% of the global population currently experiences severe water scarcity, a situation likely to intensify due to climate change. At the same time, the poorest population segments bear the greatest burden of water insecurity. This intersection of geophysical, geochemical, and socio-economic dimensions of water (in)security challenges requires a geosocial perspective, one that attends simultaneously to geophysical, geochemical, and socio-economic dimensions. Our qualitative study, conducted through 68 semi-structured interviews across two distinct sub-basins in Kabul, revealed disparities in groundwater levels, water quality, water prices, and lived experiences of water insecurity. While environmental stressors like drought and groundwater contamination contribute to water insecurity, socio-economic factors such as gender and property ownership exacerbate these impacts: Women and children bear a heavy burden of securing water, with children’s involvement in water-fetching leading to instances of violence. Furthermore, trucked water costs 33 times that of piped water, echoing alarming global trends where less privileged communities endure disproportionately greater challenges of water inaccessibility. We outline policy implications for monitoring groundwater abstraction and underscore the need for tailored strategies to combat water scarcity, such as pro-poor water strategies. Additionally, our work draws attention to the role of local gatekeepers who have informally regulated water usage in response to drought-induced scarcity, particularly in the absence of functioning government policies, underscoring the importance of collaboration with local stakeholders to ensure sustainable access to water. We argue that a geosocial approach to water (in)security can provide high-resolution findings and reveal critical gaps between common metrics and the realities of water (in)security, which also underlines the need for integrated approaches incorporating both quantitative and qualitative research.